The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(29)
“Er . . . yes, quite all right, Captain . . . This one’s finished.”
Sinclair gave a nod of satisfaction and went over to the window, where, as representative of the investigating committee, he added his flamboyant signature to the seal. Then he nodded to Clayton, and the two men approached the center of the spacious room, where the other members of the committee were waiting to take part that evening in the séance led by Madame Amber.
“Good. Everything has been set up so that we can verify the authenticity of the events under the strictest possible conditions,” announced Sinclair, casting a stern eye over the gathering. “As you are aware, Sir Henry Blendell, architect to Her Majesty the Queen, whose integrity is unimpeachable, and the creator of the most celebrated secret passageways and trick furniture in history, having examined Madame Amber’s mansion from top to bottom, and in particular this room where the séance is to take place, has signed a document stating that he has found no evidence of mechanical jiggery-pokery in this house. There are no trapdoors or hidden springs in this room, or in any part of the house, and no false bottoms or rotating panels in any of the furniture. As for the table we will sit at during the séance, it has been thoroughly checked over for wheels or pulleys or any other kind of lifting device. Furthermore, Inspector Clayton and I have boarded up the fireplace and sealed the only two windows in the room. We have likewise placed bells on the bottoms of the curtains and scattered sawdust on the floor, so any trapdoors that might have escaped Sir John’s attention will be impossible to open without our becoming aware of it. Doctor Ramsey and Professor Crookes, both of whom are with us today, have set up their equipment around the room. These include recording thermometers, light-measuring machines, and infrared devices. In addition, the séance will be recorded on a phonograph, whose cylinder will be kept in our archives should anyone wish to consult it at a later date . . . In light of all this, I think it is safe to say that never before has the stage for a spiritualist séance been so thoroughly examined. I’m afraid that any spirits wishing to make an appearance here tonight will have to be genuine.”
Everyone received the captain’s words with nods and grunts of approval, and some even giggled nervously, unable to contain their excitement.
“Good, we only have to wait for the ladies to finish examining Madame Amber, and the séance can begin,” Sinclair said finally, glancing toward the partition at one end of the room.
It was an exquisite Japanese screen made of mahogany and bamboo, about twenty feet wide and divided into four embroidered silk panels representing the four seasons. The gentlemen members of the committee were staring at it, not so much entranced by its delicate appearance as by the suggestive rustle of garments behind it. For on the far side of its panels one of those scenes was taking place that men usually had to pay to see: the only two lady members of the committee were busy undressing Madame Amber. Through the latticework running along the bottom of the screen, the medium’s small, pale feet were visible, like two little white mice at play amid the women’s hulking shoes.
Clayton was also observing the screen, almost without seeing it, though for quite different reasons. As he did so, he was imagining his voice as he unmasked Madame Amber being captured for eternity on the phonograph cylinder. He was fascinated by the idea that his words might endure so long, remaining imprinted on that roll of paraffined cardboard while he grew old and turned into someone who no longer resembled the youth who had uttered them. Assured that the cylinder would imbue his words with a modest degree of immortality, he merely would need to clear his throat and pronounce his accusations in a clear, loud voice, as though projecting from a stage. For he would succeed in unmasking Madame Amber, of that he had no doubt.
Given his intentions, Clayton could not help but feel his presence in the commission was rather deceitful, since someone at some ministry or other had suggested Captain Sinclair and his finest detective in the Special Branch join it in order to do exactly the opposite. Ever since the year 1848, when in a small American town called Hydesville the Fox sisters had contacted a spirit by means of a crude method of sounds and spirit raps, a veritable plague of mediums had spread all over the planet. So much so that toward the middle of the century there was hardly a soirée where the guests didn’t clear the table after dinner, eager to try communicating with the dead. Indeed, around that time, according to what Clayton had read in The Yorkshireman, invitations to “tea and table turning” became all the rage in the United States, reaching the shores of England in the 1860s with the arrival of the medium Daniel Dunglas Home, who decided to settle in England to seek a cure for a lung ailment. At the time, Home was considered the greatest medium the world had ever seen. There were currently more than a hundred mediums in London alone: ferrymen without a ferry eager to transport the living over to the other shore so that they could communicate with their dead, for rather more coins than the single one Charon charged for the passage.
Because so many charlatans had taken advantage of the situation to try to make their fortunes at the expense of the credulous, it was inevitable that committees would be formed to separate the wheat from the chaff. The problem was that, although the members of such committees were noteworthy men and women, known for their moral rectitude, most had only one goal: to expose charlatans. According to defenders of the cause, this created a wall of negative vibrations through which spirits were unable to pass, resulting in some mediums feeling obliged to resort to trickery. To Clayton it seemed like the most childish excuse, yet he couldn’t deny they were right about the attitude of most committee members. When they stumbled on the fantastical, they refused to recognize it as such, however much irrefutable evidence they were confronted with. Clayton had read a few of their curious reports, which alternated between an almost offensive disdain for the medium or a dismissive shrug of the shoulders when they failed to prove he or she was a sham. Occasionally, they would proffer explanations for some psychic phenomena that were even less credible than the involvement of spirits themselves. Anything was preferable to acceptance. Moreover, it was absurd to create a research group to study spiritual phenomena made up of people who were prejudiced against the subject they were supposed to be investigating. That was why he and Sinclair had been invited to join the committee: to act as a counterbalance to the intransigent skepticism of the majority of its members with their openness toward the supernatural as a possible explanation for such happenings, assuming there was no other, of course. After all, the assumption was that the two inspectors from Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, who rode on unicorns and danced with fairies, were far less reluctant when it came to accepting the forays that spirits made into our world. And that was the position Clayton had decided to adopt. Until he saw for the first time the poster of the beautiful, ethereal Madame Amber inviting her clientele to visit her salon with a false air of dreamy innocence. From that moment on, he realized it was his duty to unmask her, to bring to an end her peaceful reign of deception; of parading through the smartest salons in London, leaving everyone in awe; of living like a goddess in the midst of the poor, foolish mortals, whose pockets she emptied with a smile on her face. Yes, it was his duty, because only he could see the cunning self-interest oozing from her beautiful eyes. Because only he could see the truth behind the pretty face of a woman who was always used to getting what she wanted.